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Everyone knows that the music industry is in the midst of upheaval. It's been the story ever since the rise of Napster and the decline of CD sales beginning in 2001. For 13 years, we've all been searching for the right answer.

It can't be free. Artists have to get paid somehow. Maybe not all of them—there have always been those who don't have what it takes to write a hit song or develop a cult following—but good music that people enjoy has to be worth something.

This week, Taylor Swift's move to pull her music entirely from Spotify wasn't a huge surprise. She had already penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal this year saying that file sharing and streaming have shrunk album sales drastically, and that it's her opinion that "music should not be free, and [that] individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is." Swift wanted to keep her latest album on delayed-release, or at least only available to Spotify's premium subscribers, which Spotify didn't want; hence the impasse.

Despite the overall decline in revenue, there have been plenty of notable milestones in the music business this century. Apple launched the iPod in 2001 and the iTunes Music Store less than two years later, changing the way people purchase and consume music. Napster, Rhapsody, Sony's digital arm, and other competing services attempted to remake themselves in Apple's image and failed. Others came in and did it correctly; now you can choose between Amazon, Google Play, and Apple when buying music, and get a solid experience in each case.

Then there's streaming radio. Pandora, Slacker, and other Internet radio sites became very successful, but at the expense of musicians, who made very little in comparison (although it was still better than zero, which is what they made on file-sharing sites).

Some already-famous artists have made important statements in this ongoing battle. Radiohead released In Rainbows in 2007 and told everyone to pay whatever they wanted. Trent Reznor gives away entire albums on occasion. Last year, Beyoncé surprised the world with a previously unannounced 14-song album minutes before midnight on iTunes; it has gone on to sell several million copies.

But it's the not-already-famous artists who I'm worried about.

Spotify and the Rise of On-Demand MusicInternet radio is one thing, but the rise of on-demand music is something else entirely. That includes Spotify, YouTube, and similar services like them. And the future of recorded music hangs in the balance.

Spotify initially looked like the holy grail of music sites—streaming for free, or a low monthly fee without ads, but also letting you choose all of the tracks yourself, instead of a randomized (if algorithmically curated) stream from Internet radio sites. Things changed significantly in 2013 when Spotify began to let you add songs and albums to your overall collection, and not just to specific playlists—effectively turning it into a giant free iTunes app. The thing is, it turns out that if you're a working musician and songwriter, making real money from these services is next to impossible.

Spotify's argument is that it will be able to increase royalties to artists over time. The service says it pays almost 70 percent of revenue back to artists, but clearly there's not enough total revenue to support them now. It appears that's a long way off, if it's even possible. If you're a musician, and you get just $16 for a million plays of your music—and a million plays generally means you've broken through somehow and are recognizably popular—how could you survive on that, and further develop your career and your art?

The biggest problem here is probably Spotify's free, ad-supported version. The vast majority of listeners pay nothing for music. The same goes for people listening on YouTube, with ads playing before each song. When you subscribe to Spotify's premium service, or to Netflix, at least you're paying something, although it's still miniscule.

Trent Reznor even said just yesterday that in effect, music is free whether you like it or not, so you need to give it away. With minor variations, this is also the general argument from Radiohead, Amanda Palmer, and longtime industry firebrand Bob Lefsetz, among others. Everyone's already decided it's free, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle, so it's better people take music from you and not BitTorrent. And hey, at least they'll give you their email address. You don't want to fight with the people who want your music.

So plenty of pundits have already declared paid music dead by now, that streaming is the future, and that recorded music itself is worth zero. In addition, countless venues expect musicians to play gigs or get their songs placed in indie movies for additional "exposure" in lieu of monetary compensation.

Thousands of musicians would like to disagree with this. They need to pay rent and buy groceries. I personally know several dozen of these, all of whom have been writing, recording, and performing for the better part of two decades, and sometimes longer.

About the Author

Jamie Lendino is the Editor-in-Chief of ExtremeTech.com, and has written for PCMag.com and the print magazine since 2005. Recently, Jamie ran the consumer electronics and mobile teams at PCMag, and before that, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Smart Device Central, PCMag's dedicated smartphone site, for its entire three-year run from 2006 to 2009. Pri... See Full Bio

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